Board games of many types and varieties are well known. Many include a board having a playing surface with a particular playing path marked out it upon which the game players move an individualized game piece from a designated starting space to a designated finishing space. These games often incorporate one or more cards or card sets that determine exclusively or under particular circumstances how a game player will move his game piece on the board. For example, a children's game sold under the mark "Candy Land" includes a board having a playing path marked out with spaces of particular colors. The game further includes a card set, most of which have one (sometimes two) colored square. Upon drawing a card, a player will move his game piece to the next playing path space of the same color as that shown on the drawn card. Other games, such as the well known game of Monopoly.TM. include a playing path upon which the player moves his game piece, occasionally according to the dictates of a card drawn from card set on the board. Another game that utilizes a game board and a card set is Trivial Pursuit.TM., where the playing path has the configuration of a wagon wheel with spokes. In this game, a player rolls a die, moves on the playing path a number of spaces equal to the number of pips showing on the die, and then must answer a question in a question corresponding to the category of the space upon which his game piece landed. A successful answer results in the player being awarded a marker corresponding to that particular category of question. After correctly answering questions in all of the categories, the player heads toward the center of the board along one of the spokes and must answer correctly one question from a category chosen by the other game players. This latter game is of the question and answer type, of which several varieties exist, some of which utilize a board with a playing path and some which do not.
The question and answer type of games often have a variety of categories in which questions are asked and responses given. For example, Trivial Pursuit.TM. has cards that include six categories of questions on one side thereof with the other side including an answer for each of the categories. The categories include such broad subjects as science, sports entertainment, etc. Other games may be devoted to single categories, broadly speaking, of questions and answers. For example, a sports trivia game may have subcategories of professional basketball, college basketball, professional football, college football, professional baseball and college baseball. Each of these known board games relies, however, upon a contestant providing an answer to a specific question and thus, while testing a game player's knowledge, does not test his ability to link specific facts common to a pair of events or happenings.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,145,184 to Yearick provides a representative example of known question-and-answer games involving linkages between common elements. The game disclosed in the Yearick '184 patent is marketed under the name TRIBOND.TM., and requires players to identify the common relationship between three items. For example, a question is phrased as a listing of three items: a car, an elephant, and a tree. The correct answer is the common bond between the three: a trunk. The players select questions from card sets having multiple categories, such as film, history, current events, and sports. There are also "challenge" questions, and questions with undesignated or mystery categories.
As with games such as Trivial Pursuit.TM., the Yearick '184 game is relatively one dimensional. Questions each have the same point values even though there relative difficulty to particular players can differ drastically and unpredictably, and the game proceeds in a very linear and predictable fashion.